


A Common Spring

by Leidolette



Category: His Face All Red (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Loneliness, The Nesting Place (webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 07:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: This man is not my brother.And this man is not the butcher. And this woman is not the laundress. And this man is not my uncle.





	A Common Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venomspitting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venomspitting/gifts).



> Happy Trick or Treat 2018!

This man is not the butcher.

My brother clasps the butcher’s arm as he leaves the shop. Both are laughing, as if they have just shared some private joke. The butcher’s adam’s apple bobs up and down behind his bushy beard, muscles ripple under the skin of his forearms, and veins squirm across the backs of his hands. It’s as if the butcher’s skin can barely contain him. 

Strong, vital -- this is how the butcher has always looked. Still, this man is not the butcher.

My brother’s arms are heavy with wrapped meat. Small spots of red bleed through the white paper.

* * *

This woman is not the laundress.

The laundress is very old. She has been an old woman since my brother and I were both young boys. Every week she would trudge back and forth from the finer houses to the river and back again, for decades.

This week, as I kneel in my garden, my brother beckons her inside, a cup of hot tea in hand. She looks grateful for a moment of peace as she follows him inside. 

He shuts the door behind them.

Later, when the laundress emerges again, she seems happier, better rested. Her knuckles are knobby from arthritis, but she works now as if she doesn’t feel it. Her hands grip sure and tight around the latch of my brother’s cottage as she pulls the door shut behind her. The laundress picks up the sack and re-shoulders her burden of sheets and tablecloths that she washes for the gentleman at the edge of town. Her back is straight under the heavy weight. 

_Some go through second blooms in the autumn of life,_ I overheard the apothecary say once. 

(But if she is so healthy, why does her skin not seem to fit quite right?)

* * *

This man is not my uncle.

My uncle is the eldest brother of my late mother, and in the past he had little interest in the affairs of our branch of the family. 

These last weeks I have seen him in my brother’s company five times. Neighbors comment how fortunate it is that the breach has been healed. Family relations are of utmost importance, they say.

When I come upon them in the tavern, the conversation ceases. My brother's collar is high, my uncle's cap is pulled low, their glinting eyes turn towards me. Then they smile, and buy me a beer, and say nothing of substance. 

Last night, I saw my uncle walk to the edge of my brother’s fallow field with a shovel. He began to dig.

* * *

But I am still me.

I sit in my small dwelling and look out the window to my brother's cottage. The blooms of lilac sway gently in the wind. I cannot smell them from here. His home looks so lovely. Peaceful.

My brother is returning from town. I watch him walk up the road that goes past both our cottages. His step is as light as ever. When he reaches the small path that leads up to my front door, he pauses, and looks over at my cottage.

There's a cold feeling that spreads in my belly. Can he see me? I don't know. The sun is shining so bright outside, and I am in shadow. He is still staring. My hands start to shake -- will he come up the walk? Will he change me like he has done all the others?

(Is it fear or anticipation that raises the hair on the back of my neck?)

My brother turns away from my cottage and continues up the main road to his home. He starts humming a jaunty tune; the breeze carries it in through the window. He does not look back.

Soon my brother and his song are both passed and gone. My heart slows back to it's customary rhythm. The breeze barely rustles the grass.

I am still me. And I am alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe.


End file.
